INSPIRATION FROM OUR EXPERTS

BizBritian customer success story

What was the focus and challenge for BizBritain:

BizBritain Finance provides access to finance for starting and growing businesses, to help move on to the next stage in their journey, re-finance or buy a business. We work exclusively with SME business and are always seeking ways to engage with business owners to help enable them to learn about finance and how to acquire it efficiently and at fair rates.

What were BizBritain’s core objective for exhibiting and speaking at SME Live

We saw SME Live as a great way to learn from others as well as share our message and took an opportunity to create and deliver an Access to Finance panel event within the SME Live exhibition in October 2017. We also wanted to experience the live activities as exhibitors, to validate the exhibition as one to continue with as well as practice what we say in person.

What were the solution SME Live provided BizBritain

The SME Live team were truly awesome! We were encouraged and supported from the outset, with suggestions on how we present our message, tips for making the best from the event, as well as sharing emails to help us and SME Live get more visitors to the event. We understood it to be the inaugural event, though it felt well-polished and at all times confident in the execution before during and after the event of capitalising on the opportunities at hand. We gained leads, contacts, collaborative partners and even a new lending opportunity from taking part and contributing to the format of the event. We cannot thank the SME Live team enough for giving us the experience and it will serve us well in follow events and campaigns

What were the key Benefits for BizBritain exhibiting at SME Live:

Focus – we knew we were hitting deadlines and as we gathered momentum we increased understanding and honed our messagesCollaboration – we were delivering a panel event.We made new friends, inspired visitors to speak with us and learned how relationships are enhanced by sharing a stage. Some of these also manifested in the panel members working together too, which keeps the ethos of helping others in perspective as new opportunities foster goodwill. This has continued since with ongoing relationships developing amongst the panel members.Conversion – we paid for our attendance through converted business. That was a minimum requirement. We gained new referral partners and have since developed a new revenue stream, which was a complete bonus for us.
Brand awareness – we are reasonable known in the West Midlands and this was a test to see if we could increase our brand among peers and other stakeholders. We managed to speak with other exhibitors, conduct meetings and become invited to other events as a result. Our brand is evolving, our reputation is advancing and SME Live has given us impetus and speeded up that process.

What were the results BizBritain achieved at SME Live:

We paid for the event from business achieved at the event. We felt that the event raised the bar for support for SME businesses in the West Midlands and gave business owners the chance to visit a local exhibition rather than having to take a day out to go to London with all the expense that incurs. SME Live delivered a really vibrant and engaging activity and we are keen to repeat and encourage other business owners to exhibit, participate and support a West Midlands focused activity for their businesses